


Let Me Be Lighter

by aewgliriel



Series: Even The Stars Burn [13]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Breastfeeding, F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29776422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aewgliriel/pseuds/aewgliriel
Summary: Her first night in San Francisco, Anthea makes a heart rending discovery in the files Admiral Brody gave her about Khan. Takes place during chapter 20 of “The Scars On Our Hearts”.
Relationships: Khan Noonien Singh/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Even The Stars Burn [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/49901
Kudos: 5





	Let Me Be Lighter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sassiebone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sassiebone/gifts).



> This is dedicated to Sassiebone, who has been my most devoted reader and cheerleader for this project. She lets me run crazy ideas by her and has given me invaluable feedback over the years.
> 
> I know that I’ve been retconning some things as I go along. Part of it is a byproduct of writing this whole thing over the space of eight years (so far!), and part is because I wrote “Scars” in three and a half weeks and there are just things that I forgot to put in. So I’m filling in gaps and trying to fix things that need fixing. I’m also nearly a decade older now and there are things I’ve lived through that I hadn’t then, and they’ve shaped and informed my writing in ways that 2013-me couldn’t have dreamed of.

_In my head, I see your baby blues_

_I hear your voice and I_

_I break in two and now there's_

_One of me, with you_

_— Pink, “Beam Me Up”_

_San Francisco, California  
_ _2260.99_

It was well after dark by the time Anthea got what she felt were the essentials unpacked into the small flat Starfleet had provided her with. It was partially furnished with appliances, but the sofa and bed were hers. She’d been tempted to get a place by headquarters, for the convenience of work, but she didn’t want her comings and goings noted that closely. So, she’d ended up in a newer building in Soma, built sometime after the earthquake of 2097. In a cruel twist, the building was located on Harrison Street.

Their new home, hopefully a temporary one, was on the twenty-first floor of the tower, with a view looking north. When she’d walked into the place, Nolan cuddled in her arms, with the realtor, and had seen the view, it had felt like fate. It overlooked rather perfectly the huge chunk in the skyline and the rubble-filled crash site of the _USS Vengeance_. Crews had been working for over a year to remove the wreckage, both of the enormous ship and the buildings and vehicles destroyed by it, but the afternoon sun had still shown a curve of the saucer sticking out of the deep tear in the land that had taken out the famous Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39, and most of the Marina District, along with half of Russian Hill. Given the size of the ship, Anthea estimated that at least three hundred metres of duritanium and steel were below the surface. It could be decades before it was unearthed.

They’d probably build over it, eventually. Not even the bodies they were still finding in the mess would prevent that. They’d probably never know the real number of lives lost that day, though the official count was 12,471.

She wondered if Brody had chosen this apartment for her specifically for the view, when she’d arranged Anthea’s transfer: to remind her of the crimes she was complicit in, and to be mindful of Nolan as he grew so that he didn’t do something similar.

One good thing about Nolan not walking yet—oh, he could stand, but he wasn’t trying yet to toddle, preferring at the moment to zoom around on his hands and knees—was that she’d been able to put him in his playpen and work without a little one underfoot. She wasn’t sure yet if the pen would be coming along later. It all depended on what she found and when things happened. But she’d managed to get things unpacked and put away, at least enough to get them through the next little while.

The place wasn’t anything like the home she’d left behind, the one she loved but was too far away and too full of memories. Here, it was all sleek and modern and practical. Laminate floors, not hardwood. Sliding doors instead of hinged. No balcony, no fireplace, no garden. Just a bedroom, a bathroom, and a combined living room, dining room, and kitchen. No study. She’d have an office to use. No nursery. Nolan’s crib was in the bedroom, across from the foot of the bed where she supposed a television was supposed to go.

With her things laid out for work the next morning, and Nolan tucked into his crib, Anthea took a shower, letting the hot water soothe away some of the tension she’d been carrying. It didn’t get all of it, of course. Just being in San Francisco, with the reminder of her husband’s doings so glaringly evident, would keep her stress higher than she’d like. And she had to keep her guard up, to keep her plans hidden. She didn’t know how long it would take her. The rest of her life, if necessary.

She made use of the drying tube instead of a towel and then pulled on one of John’s— _Khan’s_ — sleep shirts over her own tank and shorts. They’d long-since stopped smelling of him, but she still took comfort in it. Anthea brushed her hair, tied it back in a tail, and padded barefoot into the kitchen for a drink. Settling into bed with a bit of wine in a tumbler, she turned on the PADD that Vice Admiral Brody had given her in the fall.

Anthea had memorised everything in it months ago, but it was a nightly ritual now, to go through the dossier on Commander John Nathaniel Harrison, or as he was really called, Khan Noonien Singh.

Her husband.

She took a sip of the wine and leaned back against the headboard, setting the glass on the nightstand. Glancing over at the crib, she saw Nolan was still sound asleep. He’d just turned seven months old two days before, and she and her mum and dad’s had a little mini party to celebrate, also as a farewell because she’d taken a position half a world away, at Starfleet Headquarters, and was leaving London.

It had all been exhausting, and would be more so in the morning, but for the moment, she could treat herself to a few mouthfuls of a low-alcohol-content wine—as she was still breastfeeding—and let herself relax for just a little while.

She unconsciously spun the ruby on her left ring finger around with her thumb, watching her son sleep, before opening the first file. It was this file in which she’d first glimpsed John Harrison, snooping on his first day at the Kelvin Memorial Archive, wanting to see the new officer she’d be working with before he’d arrived with Admiral Alexander Marcus. Just under two years ago, she’d opened this record, seen the vulnerable, almost sad face that looked up at her now, and felt some strange connection deep in her gut. And the man himself, well…

Part of her thought she’d fallen a little in love that first day, at the wry smirk, the deep voice, and the beautiful eyes that shifted between grey, green, and aqua blue in turns under a fringe of black hair.

She skimmed the file, but there was nothing it could tell her. There was nothing real in it, nothing of import, save for the annotations about the London attack, and the events in San Francisco, the Daystrom attack and the crash. Anthea had spent hours toying with the security footage of her beloved husband carrying things out of the archive wreckage and stealing a jumpship. They held his image, but not the essence of him. Not the warmth of him, the rumble of his voice, nor the callused touch of his hand on her skin.

He’d been gone four hundred and eight days, and she still ached.

The file didn’t hold the most important things: his marriage to Anthea Mackintosh Harrison, or his son, Nolan John Harrison. Starfleet didn’t know about the former, and the latter was known only to a few, information she fiercely guarded for fear of reprisal.

The next file was the report that Captain James Tiberius Kirk had submitted about events, from hearing of the bombing in London through the Daystrom attack, to the trip to Qo’noS, the attack on the _Enterprise_ by Admiral Marcus, and the captain’s death and miraculous resurrection via the blood of Khan Noonien Singh. There was something in Kirk from Khan’s blood that had drawn her to him, had made her weak. She hated to think about that night, almost three months ago, but if it hadn’t happened, she wouldn’t be here now.

Next were reports from various _Enterprise_ crew members: Commander Spock, Chief Medical Officer Lieutenant Commander Leonard McCoy, Lieutenant Nyota Uhura. Aside from the doctor’s words on her husband’s biology, nothing in them really interested her to read again. Especially that of Spock, who described his apprehension, with force, of Khan. She didn’t need to read again about how the Vulcan had chased him down, broken his arm, and beaten him unconscious. The first several times she’d read it, she’d thrown up. Not easy to do at thirty-five weeks pregnant. 

Next came the scant document on Khan himself. The information inside was still mind-boggling. Khan Noonien Singh, born sometime in 1970 in India. Place and exact date unknown. Father unknown, mother the geneticist Sarina Kaur, at least by surrogacy if not genetically. A former soldier created through an illicit eugenics program, he and others like him had taken over the Earth, conquered governments, and warred with each other. Little was known about Khan Noonien Singh except that he’d managed to take over, mostly in secret, from India to Russia, equalling a quarter of the planet, all by the age of twenty five. His subjects had loved him, oddly enough, while the other modified humans had been hated. Khan and his people had been driven from Earth, only seventy-two surviving to 2258, when they were located aboard their sleeper ship and Khan had been woken by Marcus and enslaved, made into John Harrison, and forced to work at Section 31.

The expression in “John’s” file made sense now. He must have been so confused and probably scared and angry, alone and trapped.

Alone except for her.

_Why didn’t you tell me?_ Anthea asked him silently, as she traced the features of one of only two images that they’d managed to dig up of Khan, this one of him standing on a balcony in a red and gold coat, an arm raised in a wave, blue eyes bright in a tanned face, his dark hair falling to his chin. It was dated 1996.

She couldn’t really wrap her brain around that. 1996. Her husband, the man she’d had movie marathons with and had played silly fortune cookie games with and had spent hours making love with, had once ruled over billions of lives. Nearly three hundred years ago. Her husband, who was obsessive about coordinating his socks and thought the beans in a full English breakfast were disgusting. The man she’d once caught using one of her candlesticks as a pretend lightsaber—though he’d strenuously denied that’s what he’d been doing— _that_ man, had been a dictator?

So much of his life had been taken from him and controlled by others. How much of his life with her, in the short time they’d had, been his first taste of… normalcy in his world? It made her want to cry, even as she seethed that he’d kept so much from her.

Sighing, she closed out of the file, but she used the control that took her to the file system instead of the table of contents. She’d never thought to look around in there. Anthea’s gaze skipped down the list: document, document, document, image file, image file, document…

Wait. Audio file? What was this? She hadn’t seen any audio files linked in the dossier.

The file name was “225957_ENT1701_INT_KNS_CPTKIRK_03”. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the date was 2259.57, the location aboard the _Enterprise_ , and involved its captain, Jim Kirk. KNS likely stood for Khan’s initials. INT… Interview? File number 3? Why was it the only one on the PADD? Three out of how many?

2259.57 was the day of the crash, the day she found out she was pregnant with Nolan and her entire world fell apart. What did this hold? Was it going to hurt her more? She didn’t think Brody would intentionally include something to cause her pain, but she also didn’t know if this was in the file system on purpose or not, since it wasn’t in the dossier’s table of contents.

Curiosity won over fear. Anthea quickly grabbed her ear buds and paired them with the PADD. Then she clicked on the audio file.

The first thing she heard was boots on hard flooring. She’d been on enough starships to recognise it. But goodness, the _Enterprise_ had a superb recording system, didn’t it?

A voice spoke. She recognised it as James Kirk. “Why is there a man in that torpedo?”

The next voice was a punch straight to her gut. It stole her breath and sent her heart racing.

“There are men and women in all those torpedoes, Captain. I put them there.”

Anthea had to stop the recording as tears welled, suddenly unable to see at the flood of emotion. It was _him_ , her John. Khan. Whatever he was called. She hadn’t heard his voice since their last comm call, when he’d told her that he loved her and he needed to go. Frankly, she had no idea where he’d been or what he’d been doing. She didn’t really care at this point.

For a year, she’d yearned for something, anything, some little piece of him to come back to her. And now she’d been gifted this.

Kirk: Who the hell are you?

Khan: A remnant of a time long past. Genetically engineered to be superior so as to lead others to peace in a world at war. We were condemned as criminals, forced into exile. For centuries, we slept, hoping that when we awoke, things would be … different. As a result of the destruction of Vulcan, your Starfleet began to aggressively search distant quadrants of space. My ship was found adrift. I alone was revived.

Kirk: I looked up John Harrison. Until a year ago, he didn’t exist.

Khan: John Harrison was a fiction, created the moment I was awoken by your Admiral Marcus to help him advance his cause. A smokescreen to conceal my true identity. My name is _Khan_.

Anger there. Sharp and brittle, but deep. She didn’t blame him for that.

Kirk: Why would a Starfleet admiral ask a three hundred year old frozen man for help?

Khan: Because I am _better_.

_Oh, cocky, much?_ she thought. But she knew it was true. He really was.

Kirk: At what?

Khan: Everything. Alexander Marcus needed to respond to an uncivilised threat in a civilised time and for that, he needed a warrior’s mind, _my_ mind, to design weapons and war ships.

Spock’s voice joined in to say, “You are suggesting the admiral violated every regulation he vowed to uphold, simply because he wanted to exploit your intellect.

Khan: He wanted to exploit my _savagery_! Intellect alone is useless in a fight, Mr Spock! You, you can’t even break a rule, how would you be expected to break bone?

She supposed the two officers had heard delight or pride in Khan’s words. Anthea heard anger and bitterness, derision, scorn. Knowing how Marcus had come off as owning him, something she’d even jokingly remarked on more than one occasion, she now knew what he’d struggled with all those times he’d looked at Marcus, or the things they were working on, with hatred in his eyes, and she understood. 

Khan: Marcus used me to design weapons, to help him realise his vision of a militarised Starfleet. He sent you to use those weapons, to fire my torpedoes on an unsuspecting planet.

His voice roughed, deepened. He was right, Marcus had had him endlessly designing weapons, ships, other technology, always adding one more thing as a project wrapped up. She’d done what she could to help, but Marcus really had _used_ her husband, to the point where he barely slept and she’d had to remind him to eat. 

Khan: And then he purposely crippled your shipboard enemy space, leading to one inevitable outcome: the Klingons would come searching for whomever was responsible and you, you would have no chance of escape. Marcus would finally have the war he talked about. The war he always wanted.

Kirk: No, no. I watched you open fire on a room of unarmed Starfleet officers. You killed them in cold blood.

Khan: Marcus took my crew from me!

She’d never heard him speak that way. He’d never, ever raised his voice to her except to call her from across a large space.

Kirk: You are a murderer!

Khan: He used my friends to control me! I tried to smuggle them to safety, concealing them in the very weapons I had designed. But I was discovered. I had no choice but to escape alone.

She flashed back to John arriving on her doorstep with a bag of clothes, looking tired and almost panicked, saying that Marcus had sent men after him and he needed to hide. The way he’d checked the windows and doors constantly, searched the house for bugs, sat up all night beside her while she slept, as if keeping watch over her.

His voice was thick, and if she’d been able to see his face, she’d have expected tears. A year in the past and lightyears away, and she wanted desperately to wrap her arms around him.

Khan: And when I did, I had every reason to suspect that Marcus had killed _every single one_ of the people I hold most dear.

The raw emotion in his voice made her stomach hurt. Was this why he’d sent her to Scotland, to her parents? Had he tried to hide her, too? The men had come to Edinburgh, anyway, torn apart her parents’ home. Threatened her. Had he known it would happen?

Khan: So I responded in kind. My crew is my family, Kirk. Is there anything you would not do for your family?

This interview had been after she’d stopped being able to reach him, after the Daystrom attack, when she’d spent hours and hours calling and messaging him. Had he been thinking of her then, when he spoke of his family? Or were his crew, his frozen friends, the only ones that mattered?

He’d said he loved her, but he’d never told her the truth. He’d told Kirk more than he’d told her, and she didn’t know what was real in their marriage anymore.

A fourth voice cut in. “Proximity alert, sir. There’s a ship at warp, headed right for us.”

Kirk: Klingons?

Khan: At warp?

Then the file ended, abruptly, just like all the information about what had happened after Commander Spock beat Khan unconscious.

She couldn’t help the sob that escaped, covering her mouth with a hand to keep the sound from waking her infant son. Closing her eyes, she curled in on herself, unable to fight the tears.

After a while, Anthea sat up and wiped the tears off her face. She got up and went to the bathroom, where she splashed cold water on her face. It wouldn’t do to show up at her first day supervising the genetic anomaly research department—why they’d chosen _her_ , she’d no idea—with red eyes and a puffy face from crying.

In the bedroom, Nolan made a plaintive noise. He usually slept through the night these days, but sometimes he woke, needing a nappy change and feeding. Anthea sighed, wondering how she was going to manage everything and give her son the attention he needed. But she’d persevere. She’d gotten this far, hadn’t she?

After she’d changed his diaper and had settled back into bed with the baby latched at her breast, she pulled up the audio file again and copied it over to her usual PADD, the one with all the bells and whistles that John had designed for her and given her for Christmas. She isolated his voice into a new file, one that was just him, and played it again.

Glancing down, she saw that Nolan had taken a break from nursing and was watching her with those blue-green eyes. She switched him to the other side but he wasn’t interested, which left her needing to pump. That was fine, she’d need the extra for his daycare while she worked.

She got that arranged and going, and sat against the headboard, Nolan leaning against her shoulder.

“I want you to meet someone,” she told the baby softly, whispering to his soft, dark hair. She started the file over, as she said, “This is your daddy. He’s away just now, but he’ll be home soon, I hope. He’s going to love you, my sweet boy.”

Anthea had already searched all of the London storage sites. She was here to search the California ones. If she didn’t find him here, she’d start off-world. Someday, she was going to find Khan and his people.

“I’m going to do everything I can to bring him home. Someday, Nolan, Daddy is going to come home. I promise.”


End file.
